It’s that time of year again when people start building up hype and crazy predictions and rumours start driving people insane... more than usual anyway. It’s time for the countdown to E3 2019!

So this year is going to be a little different as Sony are for the first time ever since E3 began, skipping the whole thing. Microsoft have a lot riding on them this year with rumours floating around that they’ll be talking about next generation consoles, which maybe they’ll feel pressured into now Sony have revealed some early details on the PS5.

EA are also not holding a conference but on Friday 7th June are doing live broadcasts in the style of Treehouse live streams from EA Play. But no one cares about that.

Bethesda will also have a conference on Sunday 9th June but no times are known yet.

Ubisoft are all alone as of time this is being written having a conference on Monday 10th June at 1 pm PT / 4 pm ET.

Square Enix will be having another E3 show on Monday 10th June 6 pm PT / 9 pm ET.
Limited Run Games will be having their E3 press conference on Monday 10th June 12pm PT / 3pm ET.

Nintendo will be holding their E3 Direct on Tuesday 11th June with their E3 Direct taking place at 9 am PT /12 pm ET.

Devolver Digital has announced it is to have a digital conference, similar to the past couple of years, which will take place on Sunday 9th June at 7 pm PT/ 10 pm ET.

That’s all the details I am aware of right now, will update it when I hear about further conference details etc.

Looking forward to all the crazy rumours, hopes, dreams and pure crazy predictions to come over the next few weeks. It’s also the most exciting time of year in gaming. Hopefully this year is no exception.

@iKhan People laugh at that joke, but if that ever somehow happened then not only would the entire universe implode into a black hole... well, actually nothing else would happen as we would all cease to exist

@Octane The good thing from Nintendo's point of view is that, assuming nothing new shown off for Animal Crossing or Luigi's Mansion 3 especially, prior to E3 itself, other than the fact they are coming, we haven't seen anything of a lot of their games. So in a way they are totally new reveals.

Cyberpunk 2077 was on Microsoft's stage last year wasn't it? I feel that will be their little teaser of what next generation will look like this year straight after or during what ever details they likely say regarding the next Xbox.

EA has the new Star Wars game which will come with no less than 100 DLCs at launch and the official ending as another DLC. But they also have a new Need for Speed game I believe. That franchise is like EA's answer to Sega's 3D Sonic. People want it to be good but they keep changing up the formula with each new release and have had more misses than hits.

After that teaser during the Unfiltered interview, yeah I am expecting something from Splinter Cell - but knowing Ubisoft it will be some massive open world always online games as a service and not a true stealthy single player game.

Bethesda have to really wow people, they have had 2 screw ups in the past few months which has really rocked their reputation - one being Fallout 76 and the other Blades. But I assume we will see more of Doom Eternal and Wolfenstein Young Blood. I expect some kind of "please buy Fallout 76 - look how amazing it now is... it kinda works, maybe, probably not."

Final Fantasy VII is years away. Like I don't even know if it's coming to PS5/Xbox Two generation. Square Enix love building engines for each new game and spending years developing the whole thing only for it to then need 20 million sales to make the money back.

With Sony's absence, I think they will have a State of Play presentation sometime around E3 that focuses on PS5. Sometimes out of nowhere announcements have the biggest impact, see last week's PS5 and Smash news for example.

I think there's 2 possible Microsoft outcomes (dependent on what the next gen system means for XB1X):

XB1X fully replaced - Conference split into 2 with first part being XB1 games like Ori 2, Gears 5 and Battletoads, second part is revealing the next gen system going through launch lineup and finish with Halo Infinite. A Microsoft character for Smash Ultimate is revealed at some point during the conference.

XB1X becomes the next gen's XB1S - Start with system reveal and Halo Infinite then go through a bunch of XB1 and next gen games. Microsoft character for Smash Ultimate appears where relevant (e.g. if Master Chief is the Smash character then after the Halo Infinite segment)

For Nintendo I think the focus will be Animal Crossing but the extent be dependent on whether it's shown beforehand:

E3 is the Animal Crossing debut - Direct has a bunch of content from already announced games, have a few unannounced games and then finish off with like 20 minutes of Animal Crossing. Afterwards during Treehouse is several hours of Animal Crossing with small segments of other games fitted in.

Animal Crossing has a presence before E3 - E3 is similar in structure to 2017 where Animal Crossing is 2019's Mario Odyssey.

For Ubisoft I think it'll be the usual setup, start with Just Dance and then go through already announced games, GaaS updates and a few surprises including a Nintendo collaboration.

Don't have much predictions for the others but I think Bethesda's conference will feature Skyrim.

@Grumblevolcano I think are too way off a full on blowout of next generation consoles from either Sony or Microsoft. These are likely late 2020 launches and we have a template to look at from the launch of the current systems - the initial reveal during a conference early in the launch year with a full bowout of launch lineup etc during E3 with actual launch being November time.

I also don't expect Microsoft to ever talk about anything Smash Bros Ultimate related, regardless if they have a character coming to it or not. Nintendo will be the one's to do that - Microsoft will be fully focused on Xbox One and a bit on the next generation with perhaps a teaser showing of gameplay (Cyberpunk 2077 is my guess). Halo Infinite is going to be shown for sure but again could still be some CG trailer so they can save it for next year's E3 when they promote how good it looks and plays on the next Xbox console.

@FragRed They both feel ready to move on, there's already hints that 2 of the 3 remaining big PS4 games are crossgen (Death Stranding, TLoU2) so I think they'll end the PS4 "exclusives" with Ghost of Tsushima in late 2019. On the Xbox front, I think the 3 games we already know about (Ori 2, Battletoads, Gears 5) are the only XB1 "exclusives" left where any new 1st party announcements along with Halo Infinite are crossgen or a mixture of crossgen and next gen dependent on the XB1X's fate.

@Grumblevolcano Being ready to move on doesn’t mean they are going to pull the cover off the next generation consoles and reveal all so soon. The way Sony presented the initial details on their next console suggests that we are still some way off finding out anything more, especially as neither are coming out this year. So why risk harming PS4/Xbox One holiday sales when there’s no need to?

@Grumblevolcano Those games can still technically release before the PS5 is out, and be playable on the PS5 because of BC. Maybe they'll put them in a fancy PS5 case to sell them alongside other launch games at launch. Makes sense considering the success of TLOU Remastered. I just hope they're not going to rely too much on their PS4 catalog to sell their next system. Anyway, one of those games will be out by the end of this year. Another one maybe early next year, followed by the other in May? Sounds plausible. We shall see.

@FragRed Ubisoft is still working on Skull & Bones as well I think. That looked good, but it's an always online service game unfortunately...

@Octane I forgot Skull & Bones was a thing. They showed it off with gameplay a couple of years back then it went totally silent. I’m assuming there’s a fair amount of reworking going into the game otherwise I’m sure it would have been shown again last year and probably released.

A lot of cool game to see from Nintendo this year. Animal Crossing, Pokemon (if you want to count it (maybe if TPC decides to be a part of it)), Fire Emblem and Luigi's Mansion are the ones I'm mainly hyped for. Atleast one or two of them will have to show up, so good things all around. I know some people will complain if they don't show anything 'new', but I don't really care, and these are all pretty major games for Ninty. Not to mention we really haven't seen much if anything on a bunch of them. I'm certain we'll see something for FE since it comes out like a month afterward. I hope we see a new switch upgrade at E3 or something. I've been dying to buy a new one, so I can give my old one to my siblings.

The new consoles possibly being teased or shown is pretty cool, even though the start of a new console generation tends to be really slow as of late. This year brought most of the games I really cared about for PS/XBox, but I'm unironically looking forward to seeing Dying Light 2 at this E3. Zombies are generally my thing, and it looks like it'll breath more vibrance and life into the setting and story this time around. So yay

I still curious what will look like for Animal Crossing Switch.
I really hope it has a deep robust of house designing, like blended of Dragon Quest Builders 2 & The Sims style. It will be great if full 3D 360 camera angle so we can explore the beauty world.
I have set the bar of expectation from Dragon Quest Builders 2 so high (95 from 100) and i expect my impression about Animal Crossing Switch will be at least 90 from 100.